Does anyone else have ME/ CFS along with endo?

[Bride2be]

After a year and a half of slowly getting more sick I was diagnosed with ME/ Chronic Fatigue recently and have had to completely stop work. I have so many symptoms which affect me everyday and just wondered if anyone else had similar experience?

K x

[Impatient]

Chronic Fatigue is part and parcel of having endo and most of us suffer with it day in day out - no cure yet found.

Use the search box on the green bar and type in Fatigue or Tiredness and there are plenty of previous discussions - but not much advice on how to improve it.

it's as much as i can do to work a couple of hours a day.

Dreadful tiredness.

We do tend to concentrate on the painful spects of having endo and the battle for treatment and the fatigue side gets left alone because there is nothing anyone can do about it, but from a daily living point of view it is more of an issue than the pains are.

With pains - surgery and pain killers can sort out pain to some degree.

Nothing solves the fatigue - not even extensive and thorough surgery to remove all endo.

It's a depressing reality, but you just have to accept that until a miracle cure is found for CF, you have to adapt the things you do day to day, to accommodate the fatigue.

[Hidden]

Hello Bride2be.

I have dreadful fatigue. I would love to know what the difference is between CFS and the fatigue most of us Endo ladies suffer from!

I wonder when the fatigue becomes CFS.?

Barbara x

[Impatient]

Barb- Chronic Fatigue is symptoms lasting more than 6 months.

I think that rules most of us in to the club don't you?

I prefer to call it "Chronic Ridiculously Annoying Powerlessness" -

which is more commonly known by its initials, as that's what it feels like.

Taken from the CDC website

A patient will be classified as having CFS [Chronic Fatigue Syndrome] if he or she meets the following three criteria:

1.The individual has severe chronic fatigue for 6 or more consecutive months that is not due to ongoing exertion or other medical conditions associated with fatigue (these other conditions need to be ruled out by a doctor after diagnostic tests have been conducted)

2.The fatigue significantly interferes with daily activities and work

3.The individual concurrently has 4 or more of the following 8 symptoms:

•post-exertion malaise lasting more than 24 hours

•unrefreshing sleep

•significant impairment of short-term memory or concentration

•muscle pain

•multi-joint pain without swelling or redness

•headaches of a new type, pattern, or severity

•tender cervical or axillary lymph nodes [neck and armpits]

•a sore throat that is frequent or recurring

I have the first 3 bullet point symptoms - I blame the zoladex for the memory loss - the fatigue was there for years before the zoladex/memory loss.

Which given that point 1 indicates that without any known cause you have syndrome and as we Endo Ladies do have a known cause in so far as we all have endo, except we don't know exactly which bit of the endo battle is the cause, we can't really class ourselves as having Chronic Fatigue "Syndrome" - rather we have Endo which causes Chronic Fatigue.

I vote for it to be called Chronic Ridiculously Annoying Powerlessness, as it is much better suited to what we have.

[Bride2be]

Those bullet points sum it up well and it took nearly 18 months of pain, misery and tests to finally get a 'diagnosis'. CFS is debilitating and has changed my whole life. I just don't know where to go for help as I'm just being passed between doctors

[classiebird]

Acupuncture helped me a lot when I was first diagnosed, well I wasn't officially diagnosed cos I had had the fatigue for 4 months at that stage but had all other symptoms.

The acupuncture just lifted my spirits and took the brain fog away.

I now work 4 days a week, I spend my days off resting and I can do one activity on my days off. Mostly I walk the dog to get fresh air and exercise. If I do that i Can't do housework or go shopping but now looking at the diagnosis criteria I no longer have cfs.

My specialist told me my fatigue was because of my chronic pain and I have to say that increasing my pain relief had also helped my fatigue.

So I suppose wat I'm saying is small changes can give you some of your life back its just finding what works for you